Gailhead (4024)
Trail: Gailhead River trail off Gale River fire rd. (closes in winter), Frost Trail.
Date: November 4 2000
Attending: Ralph, Gabe, Simone, & John Chicoine
Miles: 10.2-miles Time: 7 Hrs.
AMC huts, / shelters / camping site: New Gailhead hut (it was closed for the season)
Weather: Mostley sunny, 50’ish,
Our first snow hike of the 2000/01-winter season. We got to the trailhead at 9:30 and it was a wonderful day for a hike. I had been reading recent trip reports and most of them made no mention of snow, so I wasn’t expecting as much snow as we found on the trails. We started hiking with just a dusting of snow at the trail-head but within the first 2 miles as the trail slowly and gradually picks up a few hundred feet of elevation, the snow depths increased to quite a few inches deep. The trail began to show lots of water saturation beneath the snow cover (an inch deep of slush). The third mile of the hike (after the last river crossing begins to gain some more serious elevation and so increased the snow depth to 6+ inches, with several inches on the trail. The last mile to the Gailhead hut had between 8 and 10 inches of snow in the woods, and the trail was fully covered with trampled snow. The trail itself wasn’t over traveled, but it was well broken up to the hut. The trail to Gailhead summit was quite a bit less traveled and had lots of muddy sections on the trail where the sun melted the path.
There seemed to be 5 parties on the trail today; a single lady, a party of 4 in their late 40’s, a group of 3 girls in their late 30’s, a pair of men from Sweden, (first time hiking the whites), and us. It seemed like we all must have hit the trail within a few minutes of each other and all reached the parking lot within a ten-minute gap.
As much as this hike was a delightful hike, it was a bitter sweet. Our goal for this hike was not Gailhead, but South Twin. Three times now we have stood within an hour of the summit and have not summited. On this hike we reached the Twinway only to find that it had not been broken out yet. We had not come prepared to break trail. We did attempt to venture up none the less but found that every step was very slippery and without a trail, we could not see the water and mud under the snow. Within the first 50 feet Gabe stepped into a mud puddle that soaked in over the top of his boots. (Boots I might add that were beginning to loose the front 2-inch section of the sole), but the Gore-Tex liner still kept his feet drier than most of us. My old leather hikers had soaked through well before we reached the hut but the temps were warm enough that nobody’s feet got cold. Just as I remembered from our first trek to Gailhead the trek out of the valley along the river seems to take forever and we ended our trip back at the car at 4:30, just a few minutes before sunset. When we got back to the car I noticed my tire was 1/2 flat so we decided to change the tire while I still had light. That’s when we found out that this car had no lug wrench and only a doughnut spare tire. We drove to the nearest gas station filled the tire and hoped for the best; Praise God, it got us home!